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Maria Montessori born on August 31 in Chiaravalle, Ancona province, Italy.

As a child, she attends a boys’ school in Rome, with a science/engineering emphasis.

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Against opposition from her father, she pursues her wish to become a doctor

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Becomes one of the first women to obtain a Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of Rome.

Represents Italy at the International Women’s Congress in Berlin; delivers address on rights of working women, including equal pay for equal work.

Studies the writings of French doctors Itard and Séguin, who worked with disabled children.

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Audits courses in pedagogy at the University of Rome; reads all major works in educational philosophy over the past 200 years.

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Works at the psychiatric clinic in Rome.

Appointed director of the Orthophrenic School, a model school for training teachers of children with developmental disabilities. For two years, she experiments at the model school with materials to stimulate the senses. She succeeds in fostering the development of some of the children to such an extent that they achieve the same results on state exams as typically developing schoolchildren.

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Begins a second degree—in education, experimental psychology, and anthropology—at the University of Rome. Visits elementary schools to do anthropological research.

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First Children’s House (Casa dei Bambini) is opened at 53 Via dei Marsi in the San Lorenzo district of Rome on the Feast of the Epiphany, January 6.

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Gives the first training course in her method to about 100 students in Città di Castello. There, she writes, in the space of a month, her first book, Il Metodo della Pedagogia Scientifica applicato all’educazione infantile nelle Case dei Bambini. In the years to follow, this book is translated into over 20 languages. The English edition is titled The Montessori Method.

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Resigns her teaching post at the University of Rome and gives up her private medical practice to concentrate entirely on education.

The Montessori method is already being put into practice in English and Argentinean schools and is beginning to be introduced into Italian and Swiss primary schools.

Model schools set up in Paris, New York, and Boston

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Runs the First International Training Course in her apartment in Rome, under the patronage of Italy's Queen Margherita. Students come from Italy and other European countries, Australia, South Africa, India, China, the Philippines, the United States, and Canada.

Montessori Educational Association founded in the United States. Its membership includes Alexander Graham Bell, his wife, Mabel Bell, S.S. McClure, and President Wilson’s daughter, Margaret Woodrow Wilson.

First trip to the United States.

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Second trip to the United States, accompanied by her son, Mario. Addresses International Kindergarten Union and National Educational Association (NEA), and runs a training course, the Third International Course.

At the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, a Montessori class works in a glass pavilion observed by visitors.

Dr Montessori’s NEA lectures are published in New York: My System of Education, The Organization of Intellectual Work in School, Education in Relation to the Imagination of the Little Child, and The Mother and the Child.

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Montessori on Display - The Glass Classroom

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In 1915 San Francisco, at the Panama Pacific International Exposition, 30 young children attended school in a glass-walled Montessori classroom, providing an intimate view of the new educational model that was quickly catching on among American educators and parents.

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International training courses are set up all over Europe.

Travels to countries in Europe and Argentina to give lectures on her research and the Montessori method.

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Meeting of Montessori with Benito Mussolini (who had come to power in 1922) results in official recognition and widespread establishment of Montessori schools by the Italian government.

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Mahatma Gandhi, leader of the Indian independence movement, visits Montessori schools in Rome.

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Meeting of Montessori with Benito Mussolini

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Meeting of Montessori with Benito Mussolini

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The Nazis systematically destroy the Montessori movement in Germany, closing all Montessori schools.

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After conflicts with the fascist system and Mussolini, all Montessori schools in Italy “cease to exist … in a single day” (Rita Kramer).

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General Franco’s coup; Maria Montessori flees Barcelona for England and then Amsterdam. The Netherlands becomes her home; a training centre with model school is set up in Laren, near Amsterdam (materials on Cosmic Education are used for the first time). At this time there are over 200 Montessori schools in the Netherlands.

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Departs for India with Mario to run what was to be a three-month training course at the invitation of the Theosophical Society, which has been using the Montessori method to successfully combat illiteracy.

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Italy enters World War II on the side of the Germans. In June, Mario Montessori interned by the British colonial government in India as an enemy alien, and Maria Montessori confined to the compound of the Theosophical Society. Mario is released in August out of the Viceroy’s respect for Maria Montessori and to honor her 70th birthday. Still, the Montessoris are not allowed to leave the country until the war is over.

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While under house arrest, further develops the Cosmic Education Plan for the Elementary years with Mario’s collaboration.

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The war over, Maria and Mario Montessori return to Europe.

Education for a New World published in India.

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First nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize (again in 1950 and 1951).

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International conference in Amsterdam in honour of Maria Montessori’s 80th birthday.

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Maria Montessori dies May 6 in Noordwijk aan Zee, Netherlands; she is buried at the local Catholic cemetery.